45 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
In this section, the researcher will elaborate the methodological aspects of this study. The elaboration will include the research design, research method,
research validity, the participants, the research setting, techniques of gathering data, and technique of analyzing data respectively.
3.1 Research Design
This study was conducted by applying qualitative research design in which the researcher as the main instrument collected data by observing the
natural setting of classroom interaction. In this sense, this research is also called “naturalistic inquiry” Lincoln Guba, 1985; Nunan, 1992; Cohen Manion,
1994; Meriam, 1998; Silverman, 2005; Alwasilah, 2008. “Naturalistic inquiry” refers to that the researcher tries not to intervene in the research setting and does
not try to control naturally occurring events, because the researcher wishes to describe and understand the process rather than to test specific hypotheses about
cause-and-effect relationship. Therefore, naturalistic inquiry is holistic, heuristic and low in control Hussin, 2007.
The most important reason of using qualitative design is that this design is an appropriate way to explore every day behavior, in this case the behavior of
teacher and students in classroom. For this, Silverman 2005: 6 states that ‘if you want to discover how people intend to vote, then a quantitative method, like a
46 social survey, may be the most appropriate choice. On the other hand, if you are
concerned with exploring people’s life histories or every day behavior, the qualitative methods may be favored’.
Besides the “appropriateness“ reason in design, this study was carried out on the appropriateness in research paradigm as well. As this study requires the
interpretation of researcher to understand the process of classroom setting, it used interpretivism paradigm in which qualitative design is suitable to use Belbase,
2007; Connole, et.al, 1990; Dash, 2005; Emilia, 2000; Gephart, 1999; Mackenzie and Knipe, 2006; Williamson, 2006. In line with this, Meriam, 1988 argues
that ‘education classroom is considered to be a process and school is a lived experience. To understand the meaning of the process and the experience, it must
be interpreted then.
3.2 Research Method
